This technically isn’t a summer program, but I’d like to ask, when do the PRIMES USA results usually come out? It says “early January”, but I haven’t recieved anything yet, and so I’d like to ask when the results will be coming out.
@InfinityOperads - my son did not hear anything. However, two of his classmates received acceptances. I would say it looks bad that you and we have not heard yet. On the third hand 
last year, a denial for my son as well, he heard “NO” by this point in the year. Will you please post if you hear?
I’m applying for regular prines, not prines USa, and haven’t gotten a decision. I will post when (if?) I get mine.
@2016bostonian - Thanks for the update. My son is also applying for regular PRIMES, sorry I wasn’t clear. And still no reply. Have you considered calling/emailing them? My son doesn’t want to…
Haven’t heard back either. For regular PRIMES.
I got an email, a denial. 
But I think I’ll apply again next year (wait, I’m a freshman, but I’m graduating next year. Will I still be eligible to apply?).
@InfinityOperads - I’m sorry to hear that. It’s incredibly competitive, much more so than any college admissions. I know several students who have been denied by PRIMES (regular, not USA, which means not as competitive even as yours, I think) and are now at MIT. 
You are eligible even in your last year of HS; it says so on the site.
@fretfulmother I would wait until after the 15th - the latest I could consider early January - to ask them.
PRIMES Enrollment Data:
Year - Total,Local,USA,Circle
2014 - 59,36,13,10
2013 - 52,?,?,?
2012 - 31,30,1,0
2011 - 21,21,0,0
Source:
a) http://math.mit.edu/research/highschool/primes/honors.php
b) http://math.mit.edu/research/highschool/primes/materials/PRIMES-Cumulative-Report.pdf
Do you know how many applicants?
Not sure.
Guess work: There are ~300 High Schools in MA. If 3 from 100 apply, we are looking at 300 applicants, approx 10-15% acceptance rate for local applicants. Pretty much inline with the acceptance rate @ MIT. The reality may be quite different given the self-selecting nature of the application process with far fewer applicants.
As for application evaluation, mentors are integral to the application review process at PRIMES (http://blog.tanyakhovanova.com/2010/11/primes-and-rsi/). This provides a sliver of hope that there may be a number of qualified applicants going through a rigorous matching process with mentors, hence the wait.
@MaximusMeridius - that is interesting. However, my impression from the after-PRIMES statistics was that something like half of them attend MIT with the rest going to places of the same caliber, implying that they have virtually 100% admission to MIT (maybe 80%?). Thus I would hazard that PRIMES must accept at lower than MIT rates. OR I guess what you are saying, which is similar rates but compared only to the best of the best from each school…? In either case, you don’t have to be PRIMES-material to be eventually enrolled at MIT. Thank goodness.
BTW I went to MIT in the olden days, and there’s no way I ever would have been competitive for something like PRIMES. And in more recent years, a lot of my students have been rejected from PRIMES and several are now enrolled at MIT.
That said, good luck/skill to all of us!!!
Daughter of my friend received the acceptance email on Dec 31 last year on regular primes. My son is still waiting for result on regular primes.
My son emailed them on Friday morning and heard today:
“We expect to have decisions made soon, hopefully this week or next. Notifications will be sent by email.”
This is for regular PRIMES. However, he has two classmates who have already heard “YES” for regular PRIMES, on about the timescale mentioned by @HappyParents.
My DS got in!!! He just forwarded me the email with a very surprised subject line “holy cr*p apparently I made it??”
Just got rejected.
@fretfulmother
What kind of awards and accomplishments did he have? What math classes has he taken? Is there something big that is why he got in? I really want to do this, and I am applying next year, but I don’t think I have any big awards.
@2016bostonian - I’m so sorry to hear this. It’s just so incredibly competitive, and lots of kids I know who did not get into PRIMES, did get into MIT for actual college.
@kkpanu9 - So, I talked to DS and he said the most useful thing might be to compare what he had on his app last year (10th grade) when rejected, and then this year (11th grade) when accepted:
Of note, he has been good on basically all the school math contests and math team stuff in both cases, so that seems not to have been a big difference (and he has yet to make it to the USJMO/USAMO). He also had the same participation in science team, robotics, etc. from 10th to 11th grade. He also didn’t list any SAT scores or in-school math awards on either app, from what I can tell.
Here is what was different:
- He's taking BC calc now, and they seem to have a preference for someone who has at least some Calc knowledge. The two guys we know who got in as 10th graders, both had Calc previously or at the time of application (I think one from AoPS and one in school).
- Recommendations - he picked someone this year who has described him openly in really superlative terms. The other recommendation was the same person as last year. The second recommendation from 10th grade might have been fine, but we don't know.
- He wrote a more detailed and brief "specific area of research" piece this year, based on what the mentors were associated with doing and his interests dovetailing there. He also used more bullet points and I think better organization in how he laid out his application.
- (A teacher that I know said this is the most important) - he finished more of the problem set problems, and did them better, the second time he applied. In fact, he basically worked on PRIMES problems in between all of his other life stuff from the time they were released until they were due. (He loves that stuff, but my guess is that anyone who applies to PRIMES also loves it, so it's not like anyone forced him to be always working on the problem set.)
Good luck, and remember, they pick a teeny tiny number of people. They reject lots of great people, even great mathy people. We had already kind of been resigned to him not getting it [again] when the acceptance was a big surprise.
I think letters of recommendation and how you do on the problems are more important than big awards. I’m not even on my school’s math team and I haven’t done USAMO or any of that kind of stuff but I got in. I did have two good letters ( both from college professors) and good classes as well (vector calculus+linear algebra+abstract algebra) though.